marked
by lantanapetals
Summary: captain swan; soulmate tattoo au. originally intended as a one-shot but i have a few more things up my sleeve!


Emma kept a journal full of the first things people had ever said to her. Of course, none of it was very interesting. Neal had said, "Can I buy you a drink?" Ruby was, "Oh my god, I love your shoes." More often than not, it was a simple name: "The name's Victor, and you are…?"

The night before her 20th birthday, Emma furiously flipped through the pages of the journal. She lied on her bed, sipping an old fashioned that she had made herself as a nightcap. Anything to soothe her.

She was searching for anything remotely poetic, trying to commit everything to memory. When she woke up tomorrow, her soulmate's first words to her would be marked somewhere on her body, and if she already met her soulmate, she'd like to know about it.

Of course, she might not even have to worry. She might have the word "hi" tattooed on her body, releasing her from the anxiety that some of her friends had fallen victim to. Of course, if she'd had something specific tattooed on her body like her grandmother had, then she wouldn't have to waste her time dating men who inevitably turned out to be giant assholes.

Which was the worse fear? Was it better to be able to love anyone, to be anyone's soulmate? Or was it better to only be capable of loving one?

She closed the book, letting it fall to her lap as she pulled out her phone. "11:45 pm," it read. She had stayed up into the wee hours of the morning the night before, thanks to Ruby, and desperately needed sleep (and maybe an Alka Seltzer). Her heavy eyelids threatened to shut, but she wouldn't let them… she wouldn't let th—

** x x x**

Emma woke with a start, her blonde waves falling in front of her face. The sun came in through her apartment window, letting her know that she had slept well into the morning. The smell of bacon wafted into her room — Ruby. She had a penchant for lavish Saturday breakfasts.

Carefully, Emma brought her hands up to her face to examine the damage. Clean. She checked her wrists, her forearms, her biceps. All clean. Sighing out of resignation, Emma forced herself out of her bed, pulling off her shirt and stepping out of her sweatpants. Her chest, her stomach, what she could see of her back, and her legs were all clean. Her skin hadn't been marked last night. No words. No tattoos. Not even a bruise or a scratch.

She had never heard of this happening before. There had always been a rumor that some soulmates were mismatched, but in all her life, she had never heard of anyone not getting marked on their twentieth birthday. Was she so unlovable that she'd been the first? A genetic anomaly incapable of loving or being loved? (Of course that's not true. If anything was wrong with her, it certainly wasn't genetics - her parents had been in love since they met on a school field trip at fifteen. "If I get lost, would you come find me?" "I'll always find you.")

Emma stomped out through the living room and into the kitchen, not even bothering to put her clothes back on.

"Emma!" Ruby turned off the stove, sliding the last pieces of bacon onto a plate. "Want some breakfast?"

Ruby turned to face her roommate. She had an extreme case of bedhead, a shit-eating grin plastered on her face, and appeared to be wearing a men's button-down. Which only meant that…

"Hey, Emma." Victor walked past Emma, stopping right at Ruby's side to kiss his girlfriend on the cheek and steal a piece of bacon on the plate. Emma began to blush, remembering her near-naked state, and started searching the kitchen for a towel or _anything _to cover up with. "Please, it's nothing I haven't seen before," Victor chuckled. "Doctor, remember?"

"Not yet! You still have a ways to go," Ruby teased Victor, elbowing him in his side in jest. It was nice to see the couple spending some real time together - they had first met and hooked up at a friend's party, and they started seeing each other casually for a while. "Casually" had somehow turned into "couple-y" within the last couple of weeks. Victor's birthday was soon, and Emma couldn't help but wonder if the couple were making the most out of their relationship before its potential expiration date. Emma, personally, didn't see the benefit in dating before your marking. It was the reason, after all, that she kept shutting Neal down so thoroughly. And yet, she seemed to surround herself with helpless romantics and sexually liberated people - her parents, Victor and Ruby, Ashley and Sean. They had all turned out all right.

"Earth to Emma," Ruby waved a hand in front of her face. "Are you okay?"

Emma cleared her throat. "Um… er… yeah." She shuffled around awkwardly under the gaze of her friends. "Look, Ruby, can you help me look for… my mark?"

"She doesn't need to," Victor said, and pointed to the left side of Emma's head. "It's behind your ear."

Emma's eyes went wide. Her hand flew to her ear as she turned and ran towards the bathroom. She heard a smack behind her and Victor say, "What? At least it wasn't on her ass!"

As soon as her feet carried her through the bathroom door, Emma was folding over her ear, craning her neck in an attempt to see what was written there.

The words were mirrored, of course, but they were plain to see.

"Old fashioned"

** x x x**

"TEQUILA!"

Ruby threw her hands over her head, swaying her hips to the music that thrummed through the dive bar as she waited on her shots.

Victor's birthday was today, and it had been good news for the couple. He had woken up to find the words "want to play doctor?" written on his chest. There was never a question that it _wasn't _Ruby. So, after a long day of _celebration_, they had dragged Emma out to really celebrate. And they were all more than three sheets to the wind.

Emma smiled at the bartender who had poured their drinks, passing him some cash over the counter to cover her tab. Their local bar had drawn quite a crowd tonight after the Giants' win over the Titans, and the bartenders were both too busy and too strapped for money to card. The winning combo.

She walked back to the table that her friends had claimed, passing a shot glass to Victor and Ruby. They were still smiling at each other and laughing together even in their drunken haze. "To birthdays!" She yelled, barely audible over the noise.

They clinked their glasses together and downed the shots in one go.

"More, more, more!" Ruby chanted. She wrapped her arms around Emma, hugging her roommate tight. Extremely tight. "We need more alcohol. YOU need more alcohol. Liquor! Hard liquor. ALL the liquor!"

Ruby was practically singing as she led Emma back to the bar. "Ruby!" Emma tried to scorn her roommate, but drunken laughter gave away her content state of mind. "Ruby, I just came from there."

The redhead swiveled on the spot. "Y'know, I can tell you're drunk because you're acting like a six-year-old." Emma's lips turned into a pout.

"Well, I can tell YOU'RE drunk because you're acting like a frat bro!"

Ruby shrugged. "Fair point. Which is why we should take more SHOTS!"

Emma laughed as Ruby pushed other patrons to the side, approaching the bar in the least subtle manner possible. And if that weren't enough, as soon as she reached the counter, she yelled "BARKEEP!" into the dark abyss beyond the bar.

As if just by the sheer power of Ruby's will, another bartender appeared. Well, at least they'd get their drinks quickly.

"Yes, love?"

Was it suddenly hot in here? Emma felt the flush that had rested in her cheeks begin to creep down her neck. She'd never seen this foreign bartender before. She would've remembered. He had gorgeous black hair, bright blue eyes, and soft pink lips. It may not have been the alcohol to make her flush, but it was definitely the alcohol that made her think of how his hair would look after sex, or how his eyes would shine as he hit on her, or how his lips would feel on her skin…

Ruby slapped a hand on Emma's back. "My friend here and I would like some alcohol."

The bartender laughed, a short, sharp sound that filled the air around them. "Any particular type, lass?" Oh, his accent sure was nice. And he probably smelled like rum and whiskey and grenadine and all the drinks she loved and the old wood that this counter was made out of.

"The hard kind." Ruby laughed, bringing Emma out of her stupor, again.

She brought her eyes up to meet the bartender's. Sure enough, he was looking right at her, a smirk plastered on his grin. He turned back to her roommate, his eyes flitting back to Emma's face as it grew redder and redder. "Alright, then. Let me take a guess at you and _your friend_'s preferred drinks."

He looked Ruby up and down, no doubt trailing his eyes over her figure in the tight dress she was wearing. Ruby had taken extra care to look good for Victor's birthday. "For you, a tequila sunrise."

Emma chuckled, bringing the bartender over to face her with a raised eyebrow. Of course he probably knew Ruby would like that, especially after she had been openly pounding back tequila shots for the past hour. But Emma would be a little harder to crack.

The bartender appraised Emma the same way he had done Ruby, and if she could crumble up and die in this bar, she would. She suddenly regretted throwing on her nearest v-neck and cleanest pair of jeans and _wished _she had had the forethought to dress a little… better? Sexier? _Anything_, really.

The bartender took a step back from the counter and smiled.

Emma would look back on this moment in the years following, wondering if she would've seen it coming had she skipped the last one or three tequila shots.

"Old fashioned."

Emma gasped. Her eyes were still trapped in the bartender's bright blue ones, but she could feel Ruby's gaze on her. Emma couldn't see her, but she knew her roommate was having a meltdown.

The bartender tilted his head in confusion as Emma brought a hand up to the skin just behind her left ear, the skin where the words "old fashioned" were marked just a few months ago.

"Fuck off," she whispered, her voice quieter than a mouse's breath.

The bartender cleared his throat. "Erm… excuse me?"

She leaned in over the bar. "I said, fuck off!" She folded her ear over so that he could see the words marked on her skin.

His lips were pressed into a thin line. Emma waited for some sort of reaction, but his face was unreadable. Instead, he rolled up his right sleeve and slammed his forearm on the bar.

"Fuck off" was printed on his wrist.

The two stared at each other, a little unsure of how to proceed. Ruby had already travelled halfway across the room, abandoning their plan to get drinks entirely. She was shouting animatedly at her boyfriend about Emma and the stranger, and pointing towards the soulmates in question.

The bartender rolled up his sleeve, crossed his arms, and leaned against the counter. "Y'know, I'd always think about the situations in which my soulmate would tell me to fuck off… _this _was definitely not one of them. Love, I'm not quite sure how to go about this."

Emma watched the bartender rub his arms awkwardly. Their realization had been sobering, but it hadn't been sobering enough to stop her lust-filled thoughts of him. She absentmindedly continued to rub the skin behind her ear. "Maybe we should start with names?"

The bartender coughed. "Oh, er, right. The name's Killian Jones."

He stuck out his hand, and she shook it. "Emma Swan."

Killian grinned, and Emma swore that she could watch him smile forever (and in fact, she just might). It lit up his face, turning him from dark and broody to just _dead _sexy.

"Well, Emma Swan. Would you like to tell me how right I was regarding your cocktail preferences? Perhaps over coffee?"

Emma smiled, grabbing a pen from her purse to write her number on a nearby napkin. "I'd love to, but it'll have to be in a couple days. I think this bender is gonna push me over the edge into the Area 51 of hangovers."

She passed her number to him and she watched him fold it up and stick it in his back pocket. He laughed. "What, you're not going to sleep with me right away, now that we know we're soulmates, _love_?"

Killian winked at her, and Emma feigned shock. "How dare you, Killian Jones?"

Her feet led her unsteadily across the floor, back in the general direction of her friends. Everything was too overwhelming, and she was too drunk to deal with it. She needed to leave _now_.

"Old fashioned!" Killian yelled after her, and she barely heard it over the noise.

Emma grabbed a giddy Ruby and Victor, leading them towards the door. She shoved the two of them out into the night, praying they'd make it up the stairs alright. She turned back to see Killian behind the bar, still looking at her, still smiling. She smiled back.

"Fuck off!"


End file.
